-206 BC- so, the Qín dynasty ended up collapsing after only being around for like 15 years haha.
-Because of the empire's collapse, the land was now split into 18 (!) different warring kingdoms (hence the name "Eighteen Kingdoms period" for this time in Chinese history).
-Although the rebels' main army was led by General Xiàng Yǔ, the Qín capital, Xiányáng (in modern-day Shǎnxī Province), and the royal family had been captured by another allied rebel general, Liú Bāng.
-Liú Bāng was born to a peasant family in 256 BC (approximately) in the state/kingdom of Chǔ (in a village near the city of Péngchéng (modern-day Xúzhōu, Jiāngsū Province)).
-According to legend, his upbringing was full of ominous portents (usually associated with dragons, a theme that was constant throughout his life).
-For example, when he would drink a silhouette of a dragon would appear around him; as he got older he "resembled" a dragon more and more; etc.
-When he got older he was eventually appointed as a minor patrol officer in the military and village executioner.
-However, after the land was unified by the Qín dynasty everything changed for him one day when some of his prisoners escaped as he was escorting them to Mount Lí (where they were to be forced to work on Qín Shǐ Huáng's necropolis).
-The punishment for military officers who had prisoners escape under their watch was death, so naturally Liú Bāng knew that he was screwed. However, instead of turning himself in to be executed, he decided to escape along with the prisoners and form a band of outlaws.
-During this time it's said that Liú Bāng encountered a dangerous white dragon (with a poison breath weapon!) and slew it (drunkenly haha). However, early the next morning he encountered an old woman on the side of the road who was crying; she told him that her "child had been slain by the son of the Red Emperor (AKA Emperor Yán, the Flame Emperor, the Yán Emperor, etc. (also possibly the same dude as Shénnóng, considered by some sources to be one of the mythical Three Sovereigns of prehistoric China))" before vanishing into the morning mists. Could this mean that Liú Bāng was a descendant of the Red Emperor and thus destined for greatness??
-Eventually, Liú Bāng and his band built a stronghold at Mount Mángdàng (near modern-day Shāngqiū, Hénán Province) and there they just kept on growing in number.
-Finally, in 208 BC King Huái II of Chǔ called upon Liú Bāng and his outlaw army to join in the rebellion against the Qín dynasty!
-During this time, King Huái II of Chǔ (AKA Emperor Yì of Chŭ), essentially a puppet ruler installed by Xiàng Yǔ as the new ruler of the resurrected kingdom of Chŭ, had issued a competition among all the rebel generals that whoever would "subdue the (Qín) heartland" (which essentially means take the capital, I guess?) would be rewarded with a rulership over Guānzhōng (the capital region of the Qín dynasty; basically the former territory of the state/kingdom of Qín?).
-So, although Xiàng Yǔ was really calling the shots behind the scenes, it was awkward because King Huái II of Chǔ HAD said that rulership of the Qín heartland would go to whoever took the capital first. It seems like maybe it was assumed that Xiàng Yǔ would do this, but of course it actually didn't work out this way.
-Xiàng Yǔ attempted to solve this problem by splitting up Guānzhōng into three different kingdoms (known collectively as "The Three Qíns"):
-Yōng (ruled by former Qín general Zhāng Hán)
-Sāi (ruled by former Qín general Sīmǎ Xīn)
-Zhái (ruled by former Qín general Dǒng Yì)
-For Liú Bāng, instead of being named king of Guānzhōng as was promised to him, he instead was given the new kingdom of Hàn, a territory to the southwest (land formerly belonging to the "barbarian" states of Bā and Shǔ (known collectively sometimes as the Bā-Shǔ culture) largely separated from the rest of the kingdoms by mountains.
-Obviously, this was kind of meant to snub Liú Bāng, as Xiàng Yǔ was probably pissed off at him for having the audacity to capture Xiányáng before he got there.
-Hàn was so difficult to get to that you would have to travel through all these dangerous tiny roads that curved along the mountains (which had initially been created by the Qín armies as a temporary solution to pass through). Occasionally there wouldn't even be a road at all and you'd have to walk over wooden planks built into the side of the mountain just to continue on! No thanks!!
-In order to properly settle (and truly pacify?) the region, Liú Bāng was given 30,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilians.
-For the time being, he would lay low...
-Of course, the peace of the Eighteen Kingdoms period almost immediately fell into chaos as the different kingdoms started fighting with one another.
-Qí (one of the three kingdoms (which included Jiāodōng and Jìběi) that the former state/kingdom of Qí had been divided into) immediately declared war on both Jiāodōng and Jìběi in order to reunify the former lands of the state/kingdom of Qí, quickly conquering them.
-Western Chǔ ("Xī Chǔ"), ruled by Xiàng Yǔ (who had crowned himself "Hegemon-King of Western Chǔ" ("Xī Chǔ Bà Wáng"), invaded and conquered Hán (not to be confused with Hàn (ruled by Liú Bāng), of course).
-Elsewhere there a bunch of rebellions and insurrections and shit, too.
-Because of the chaos, Liú Bāng decided to take advantage of the situation and expand his power by invading Yōng.
-Liú Bāng was able mask his intentions of invasion by claiming that he was just fortifying the defenses of the mountain passes.
-After two main battles, Yōng's armies were defeated and Zhāng Hán was forced to retreat to a fortress at Fèi Qiū (modern-day Xīngpíng, Shǎnxī Province).
-At this point, it was obvious that Liú Bāng was most likely planning on taking the region of Guānzhōng for himself (and thus conquering the rest of the Three Qíns), and apparently his army was so badass that Sīmǎ Xīn and Dǒng Yì decided to form an alliance (which also included King Shēn Yáng of Hénán for some reason) with Liú Bāng!
-205 BC- although Xiàng Yǔ must have known what was going on in the west, he was bogged down in a war with Qí so I guess there wasn't really much he could do to counter Liú Bāng's rapidly increasing power.
-Knowing he had to move fast before Xiàng Yǔ could properly organize, Liú Bāng and his allied forces decided to invade Western Chǔ, heading straight for Péngchéng!
-This kicked off what would become known as the Chǔ-Hàn Contention (which would determine who would replace the Qín dynasty as the next imperial line, essentially).
-They must have arrived moved really quickly because they were able to immediately capture and sack the capital city.
-Of course, when he received word of the news that his capital had been taken by Liú Bāng's massive allied forces, Xiàng Yǔ raced back to the city to try and drive off the invaders.
-Surprisingly, Xiàng Yǔ's army was able to catch the invaders off-guard because they had just been partying, raping, and pillaging the whole time and I guess hadn't prepared for Xiàng Yǔ's obvious return to try and save the city. So, Liú Bāng's army was driven out of the city and forced to retreat to the nearby Gǔ and Sì rivers, but they were being chased by Xiàng Yǔ's army.
-When the two armies finally clashed (the Battle of Péngchéng), Liú Bāng's army got its ass kicked and they suffered heavy casualties.
-In fact, the casualties were so bad at one point that the sheer amount of bodies dammed up the Sì River!
-Fearing for his life (obviously), Liú Bāng and his bodyguards fled to his home village (he was born and raised in this area after all, and his family even still lived here!) where he hoped to secure his family from a possible reprisal by Xiàng Yǔ.
-However, Liú Bāng was too late (although he did encounter some of his family members randomly along the road on the way there; more on that later), as Xiàng Yǔ had already captured some of Liú Bāng's family.
-It probably didn't happen, but according to the historical records Liú Bāng discarded these family members to the side of the road so that his chariot would go faster!
-Xiàng Yǔ now had a choice- he could help rebuild his capital city and refortify/regroup, OR he could go after Liú Bāng in order to vanquish the Hàn threat once and for all.
-Surprisingly, Xiàng Yǔ decided to rebuild/regroup; after all, he still had much of Liú Bāng's family as hostages.
-Liú Bāng had been soundly defeated, so he headed back to Hàn to try and figure out what to do.
-Realizing the shift in momentum, Sīmǎ Xīn and Dǒng Yì then decided to break their alliance with Liú Bāng and instead ally with Xiàng Yǔ!
-To further strengthen Xiàng Yǔ's prospects for domination, Qí sued for peace (which allowed for Xiàng Yǔ to not have to be distracted by fighting them instead of Hàn).
-Upon returning to the city of Yú (in modern-day Shāngqiū, Hénán Province (and capital of Hàn (I think))), Liú Bāng settled down in order to decide on what to do next.
-His initial plan was to get King Yīng Bù (who had actually been a former criminal (with a tattooed face as a punishment!), escaped slave, and outlaw warlord in the past!) of Jiǔjiāng to declare war on Xiàng Yǔ and invade Western Chǔ (which actually worked, somehow!), but Xiàng Yǔ's forces were too strong and Yīng Bù's army was defeated.
-Xiàng Yǔ then decided to launch a counterattack invasion (led by General Lóng Jū) against Jiǔjiāng.
-Lóng Jū's army was successful in quickly crushing any opposition, and Yīng Bù was actually forced to flee to the court of Liú Bāng! Doh!!
-At this point, however, Liú Bāng had had enough time to raise another army, and he immediately used it to start attacking Western Chǔ again!
-During this time Liú Bāng also named his son, Prince Liú Yíng, as heir to the Hàn throne.
-It's also worth noting that Zhāng Hán's remaining army was finally defeated by Hàn's forces, which resulted in Zhāng Hán committing suicide before he could be captured.
-Also during this time King Wèi Bào of Western Wèi ("Xī Wèi" in order to make it not confused with its original incarnation as the state/kingdom of Wèi) decided that it was time for Western Wèi to enter the war for domination, and he kicked things off by breaking his alliance with Hàn, allying himself with Xiàng Yǔ, and then declaring war on Liú Bāng! Rude!
-Because of this sudden reversal, Liú Bāng knew he had to act quickly in order crush Wèi Bào ASAP, so he sent Hán Xìn, his best general, to lead Hàn's forces.
-By being tricky, Hán Xìn was able to convince Wèi Bào that the Hàn army was going to attack the Wèi city of Línjìn, but actually Hán Xìn was planning on attacking Wèi's capital at Ānyì!
-Not really sure what exactly went down, but by the time the armies finally did clash, Wèi Bào's army was crushed and Wèi was completely surrendered to (and promptly annexed by) Hàn!
-Surprisingly, Wèi Bào actually survived all of this, and after his defeat was actually accepted into Liú Bāng's army and even promoted to general!
-Hán Xìn then continued the drive north and invaded the kingdom of Dài (not sure what their excuse was, exactly)!
-I could be mistaken, but it seems as if during this time the kingdoms of Dài, Hénán, Chángshān, and Yīn (all ruled by former Zhào royalty or government officials) had all banded together to form a sort-of resurrected Zhào state/kingdom, so that would explain why the sources are saying that Hán Xìn "attacked the kingdom of Zhào" even though really Zhào had fallen to Qín 17 years earlier.
-Hàn's army clashed with the forces of Dài near the Jǐngxíng Pass (the Battle of Jǐngxíng (AKA the Battle of the Táo River)) in the Tàiháng Mountains.
-Surprisingly, although Hán Xìn had a much smaller force than Dài's, the Hàn army was able to defeat Dài (which also cemented Hán Xìn's reputation as a badass general!) by feigning a retreat (but being unable to retreat due to the mountains which made them fight more ferociously), ambushes, counterattacks, etc.!
-Once Hán Xìn's army made it through the Jǐngxíng Pass and defeated the Zhào alliance, he set his sights on both Western Chǔ and Qí.
-Both were powerful states, but Hán Xìn knew that they had been distracted from containing Hàn's wars of expansion due to fighting with each other.
-204 BC- at this point, the three most powerful states in the Eighteen Kingdoms (or whatever China was being called at this time) were of course Western Chǔ, Hàn, and Qí.
-During a diplomatic meeting there was some sort of an agreement reached in order to calm hostilities where Western Chǔ and Qí agreed to a ceasefire and Qí recognized Hàn as the rightful "leader" of the region (whatever that meant).
-However, by the time Liú Bāng received word that Qí was on their side it was too late to get the message to Hán Xìn, who was quickly moving to invade Qí!
-Believing that they had been deceived by Hàn, Tián Guǎng (the new king of Qí (not Tián Du; it's complicated)) fled to Péngchéng and immediately swore fealty to Xiàng Yǔ.
-Agreeing to protect his new vassal state, Xiàng Yǔ quickly raised an army (led by General Lóng Jū (who had a reputation for being a brave but also arrogant and reckless commander) and sent it to drive out the Hàn forces from Qí.
-Hán Xìn was able to exploit Lóng Jū's recklessness by causing the Qí/Western Chǔ army to be caught in a genius trap involving the opening of a dam and getting flooded (which also resulted in Lóng Jū's death as well).
-Apparently Tián Guǎng was there as well because he was also killed during the battle's aftermath.
-Qí was then immediately annexed by Hàn!
-At this point, things were really looking grim for Xiàng Yǔ, as the region had obviously been dominated by Hàn and Western Chǔ's armies had suffered too many casualties to resist for much longer.
-Although Hán Xìn had been on a roll up till now, it seems as if he finally overplayed his hand when he requested that he be made the new king of Qí.
-This actually put Liú Bāng in a tough situation; Hán Xìn possessed a relatively large force compared to what was at Liú Bāng's immediate disposal (an army which was actually busy defending the captured city of Xíngyáng from Western Chǔ forces), and Liú Bāng had expected Hán Xìn to return to Hàn and help drive off the Western Chǔ army from Xíngyáng, not ask to be named king of Qí!
-However, Liú Bāng knew that he was in no place to challenge Hán Xìn's power grab, so he reluctantly acquiesced to Hán Xìn's request.
-This was also because Xiàng Yǔ had attempted to exploit this shift in relations between Liú Bāng and Hán Xìn by inviting the latter to join in a military alliance with Western Chǔ against Hàn. Also, if Hán Xìn agreed to this alliance, Western Chǔ would then recognize Hán Xìn's legitimacy as the new king of Qí.
-203 BC- At this point, Liú Bāng knew that his forces were too weak to continue fighting with Western Chǔ at Xíngyáng and that Hán Xìn was now not to be trusted, so he decided to try and sue for peace with Western Chǔ. In addition, Xiàng Yǔ had captured Liú Bāng's father, so that might have had something to do with it, too.
-The deal (known as the Treaty of the Hóng Canal) was that everything west of Xíngyáng (including the city itself) would belong to Hàn, and everything to its east would belong to Western Chǔ.
-In addition, all of the hostages taken by Western Chǔ would be returned to Hàn.
-Apparently, Xiàng Yǔ himself even traveled to the city for the peace talks.
-However, Liú Bāng must have realized that this was not a sustainable solution at all to the Chǔ-Hàn Contention, and that actually it would probably be much easier to just nip this whole thing in the bud by attacking Xiàng Yǔ as he was traveling back east!
-Liú Bāng then raised an army to go after Xiàng Yǔ and attempted to get both Hán Xìn and the Hàn general Péng Yuè (AKA Zhòng) to do a three-pronged attack, but this didn't really pan out and Liú Bāng's army fought alone and ended up getting defeated (although Liú Bāng was able to survive by retreating).
-While normally Liú Bāng would have reprimanded his subordinates in some way for not following orders from their king, because of the situation he was in Liú Bāng was obviously in no position to actually follow through with any punishments or disciplinary actions, so he just ended up apologizing for asking so much from his men haha.
-In fact, in order to rely on them for the next campaign, Liú Bāng even went so far as to grant the two generals land and titles in order to "thank them" for their continued support.
-202 BC- the armies of Hàn invade Western Chǔ! This is it!
-The invasion was a three-pronged assault (with each prong led by Liú Bāng, Péng Yuè, and Hán Xìn, respectively).
-It's unclear how exactly this happened, but it wasn't long before Xiàng Yǔ and his army found themselves trapped in a canyon near the town of Gāixià (outside of modern-day Sùzhōu, Ānhuī Province).
-To make matters worse, one of Xiàng Yǔ's favorite wives, Consort Yú (AKA Yú Miàoyì or "Yú the Beauty" ("Yú Měirén")), had been captured by Hàn forces (at this point it looks like the armies led by both Liú Bāng and Hán Xìn had joined up).
-The Battle of Gāixià- the Hàn generals knew that Xiàng Yǔ would do anything to rescue Consort Yú, and they were right- it wasn't long before Xiàng Yǔ's army was ambushed and completely surrounded by the forces of Hàn.
-It was at this moment that Hán Xìn had told his men to start singing traditional folk songs from Chǔ (meant to make Xiàng Yǔ's men homesick so they'd stop fighting, I guess? Either way, it worked!) which resulted in the Western Chǔ army drop in numbers due to surrender and desertion. The final nail in the coffin, however, was the suicide of Consort Yú (who apparently either blamed herself for Xiàng Yǔ's defeat OR just didn't want to distract him from the battle).
-Although he succeeded in breaking through the Hàn's line in order to escape with a small number of loyalists, Xiàng Yǔ was soon tracked down by Hàn cavalry and was able to commit suicide before he could be captured.
-Although Western Chǔ would continue to try and hold out against the Hàn forces and its allies, it was obvious that the Chǔ-Hàn Contention was quickly coming to an end as much of Western Chǔ's territory was easily being conquered by the invading Hàn armies.
-Once Western Chǔ had finally fallen, Liú Bāng declared himself emperor (becoming Emperor Gāozǔ of Hàn ("Hàn Gāozǔ" ("High Ancestor of Hàn"))) of his brand-new Hàn dynasty, although he still ensured that he held up his end of the many deals that he had made with all of the generals, nobles, and members of the royal family who had supported him up to that point (which also included many enemy generals, too, as a sign of respect) and awarded many kingships (who were to rule semi-autonomously, answering only to the emperor, himself) and other titles to them within the empire of Hàn.
-This was definitely a departure of how the Qín dynasty had done things (an attempt to have complete control of its empire by dividing it up into commanderies governed by non-hereditary official positions (an extremely radical departure from how it had always been in China)) and a return to the traditional Chinese style up till that point (a bunch of different kingdoms all subordinate (in theory) to an imperial overlord of semi-divine ancestry, as seen with the previous dynasties).
-Would a return to this style of rule be as problematic as it had been for the previous dynasties (not including the Qín)?
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